The Daily Startup: Late-Stage Cash Pours Into Solar Panels for Homes

Companies that finance and install solar panels on homeowners’ rooftops are getting the attention of late-stage venture capital investors. The latest example is Sunrun, which has raised a $150 million Series E round that puts its post-money valuation above $1 billion, Timothy Hay reports for VentureWire. The round for Sunrun is part of a rush of late-stage private capital into the sector–four such deals have closed for a total of $213.5 million through the first quarter, which already surpasses the sector total for each of the last two years, according to data from industry tracker Dow Jones VentureSource. The company has struggled to keep pace with larger rival SolarCity, which went public in December 2012 and has performed well since then. Sunrun has ramped up activities in a bid to catch up.

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Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has joined a $40 million financing for Kymab and partnered with the U.K. company on research that could lead to the discovery of vaccines for malaria and HIV. Kymab is one of several biotechnology companies to receive Gates Foundation support.

Bessemer Venture Partners has led a $22 million Series B round in Dashlane to expand the company’s password and security app to e-commerce and go global. Dashlane has more than two million users who have each created a master file to store an average of 50 accounts and associated passwords.

Kayak Software co-founder Paul Englishopened a “software foundry” in Boston called Blade that is equal parts venture capital firm and tech development studio and will invests in startups from its $20 million seed fund.

A survey from law firm Fenwick & West about first-quarter valuations showed just 8% of financings were down rounds in which a company’s valuation fell, while 76% were up rounds. The survey also found that the average valuation increase was 85%, up from 57% in the fourth quarter of 2013.

6Sense has emerged with $12 million in funding for Big Data technology that helps companies find previously unknown prospective customers before they’re ready to buy. The Series A round was led by Battery Ventures and Venrock, with participation from Silicon Valley Bank.

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ELSEWHERE AROUND THE WEB:

Google in Talks About Possible Acquisition of Twitch. Googleis in talks about a possible acquisition of Twitch, a fast-growing, live-video-streaming service, report the WSJ’s Douglas MacMillan, Alistair Barr and Rolfe Winkler. Twitch, launched in June 2011, raised $20 million from investors including Thrive Capital, Alsop Louie Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners in September. The WSJ reported that the deal was not close to being done, although Variety earlier reported that a deal had been reached and would be announced imminently.

As JD.com Goes Public, Potential Investors Get Little Say. Chinese online retailer JD.com, which is preparing for a U.S. IPO, isn’t offering potential shareholders much say in company affairs, the WSJ’s Liz Hoffman reports. It’s the latest in a string of Chinese companies to go public in the U.S. with governance plans that keep control within a small group.

Longtime Square CTO Bob Lee to Depart.Square’s chief technical officer Bob Lee, who joined the company in 2010 from Google, is leaving the company, Re/code’s Jason Del Rey reports. Originally hired to work on the company’s Android app, Lee was promoted to CTO in 2011. He was the company’s 13th employee, a spokeswoman said.

Silicon Valley Talent War Drives Up Pay. The war for tech talent is forcing new and established companies in Silicon Valley to pony up escalating amounts of cash and stock to hire—or keep—employees, reports Cadie Thompson of CNBC.com. A recruiter said more candidates are willing to accept a smaller salary for a greater equity stake in startups, rather than take higher pay from bigger companies.

Kirsten Green’s Rise to Top of VC Heap. E-commerce investing has made the smartest Silicon Valley VCs look foolish, but Forerunner Ventures founder Kirsten Greenhas managed to avoid the missteps of others because she’s not part of the good ol’ boy Sand Hill club, reports PandoDaily’s Sarah Lacy in a profile.

Don’t Overestimate Your Competition. Focusing too much on the competition can be a mistake for entrepreneurs, writes Maynard Webb for the WSJ’s Accelerators blog. He gives an example: The week he officially joined eBay in 1999, Microsoft and Dell launched an online auction site called FairMarket. Had eBay gotten bogged down in competing against the new inititative, it might have lost its focus and changed its strategy. Instead, FairMarket never became a real threat and eBay wound up buying it a few years later in 2003, showing that big names don’t guarantee big wins.

In a blog post, Andreessen Horowitz Partner Scott Weissmakes a similar point. “When I was at Hotmail, we constantly debated about going after Exchange and the corporate market. Luckily, our growth on the consumer side was so overwhelming that we couldn’t pursue it because we would have gotten killed,” he writes, adding that companies sometimes over-prioritize competitive checklist features. Companies should instead double down on the things that make them special, he says.

Unsung GGV Capital Anoints Tech’s Biggest Players in China, U.S. The Chinese tech world is like a parallel universe, with its own social networks, e-commerce platforms, gaming empires and mobile chat clients. GGV Capital, which just closed a $620 million fund, has had a hand in both worlds for over 10 years, and now that the two markets are colliding, it stands poised as a major power broker, BetaBeat’s Jack Smith IV reports.

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Produced by the editors of Dow Jones VentureWire, Venture Capital Dispatch tracks the fast-moving developments at the intersection of high-tech innovation and venture capital finance. Featuring the VentureWire reporting team in the Silicon Valley, New York, Boston and Shanghai tech centers, Venture Capital Dispatch provides insight into the newest start-ups and latest trends in venture capital investing. Write us at VCdispatch@dowjones.com. For more information on Dow Jones products covering venture capital and other financial markets, go to http://pevc.dowjones.com.